Mountain farming in the making: approaches to Alpine rural agro-food challenges in Trentino

The current paper belongs to a set of ongoing multi-scalar and trans-disciplinary research studies investigating potential approaches for regenerating rural areas in the Alpine areas of Italy, which have been suffering for years from underused phenomena (Balducci, 2019; Gretter et al., 2018a). The paper focuses mainly on the territory of the Autonomous Province of Trento to investigate how farmers face the current challenges in different ways while looking for sustainable and viable systems from the ecological and socio-economic perspectives (Bender & Haller, 2017). Trentino’s cultural context reflects a long tradition of specific law rules, which have granted a degree of self-government capabilities in various sectors such as territorial planning and land use policies, culture and school system, or social services (Gretter et al., 2018b). Rather than present specific results based on deep quantity-qualitative analysis, the goal of the manuscript is to overview the peculiar features of this alpine territory, opening a series of inputs of reflection and discussions. Some have already been locally activated, but most must be addressed in a broader and systemic approach, involving a more comprehensive series of stakeholders, moving from public authorities to citizens. In this manuscript, we highlight ongoing experiences that the Trentino Agro-food value chain faces today and how this impact the territory and its cultural landscapes’ preservation

Contribution of Conceptual-Drawing Methods to Raise Awareness on Landscape Connectivity: Socio-Environmental Analysis in the Regional Context of Trentino (Italy)

This paper deals with landscape understanding and connectivity from an ecological as well as a human perspective. It is based on a broader research study known as EIT Climate-KIC SATURN (System and sustainable Approach to virTuous interaction of Urban and Rural LaNdscapes) co-funded by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), Climate-KIC and the institutions participating in this project. The aim of the study was to explore how landscape connectivity is perceived, on urban and regional scales, by decision-makers and key stakeholders as well as the impact this can have on building sustainable cities. The paper used a series of drawing and visualization workshops, community engagement methods, and participatory tools to identify the connection communities and decision-makers have with their landscape surroundings as well as the impact landscape connectivity has on our health and wellbeing. Through a series of specifically designed workshops following a landscape visioning approach, the paper explored how drawings and visualizations can support decision-makers to create a vision that addresses landscape connectivity, considering the socio-ecological factors in their area and creating a holistic regional approach between urban and rural landscapes. The study concludes that landscape connectivity is of major importance when creating visions for a sustainable future; however, a better connection between ecological and human elements needs to be established to improve landscape design

Socio-Ecological Connectivity for Productive, Circular and Resilient Territories. The Experience of the "Saturn" EIT Climate-KIC Pan European Project

Since the European conference on Sustainable Cities and Towns happened in Aalborg in 1994 the urgency to promote a more balanced relationship and to enhance the reconnection between urban and rural areas became a matter of discussion in research and policy-making. A further important push towards the implementation of reconnection strategies occurred in 1997 with the European Conference on Rural Development. Nowadays, many stakeholders involved in territorial and landscape planning, in order to implement a new relationship between cities and countryside, aim to remove rural areas from margins, to bring citizens closer to the urgent need to safeguard the entire natural ecosystem, and to preserve rural areas and the ecosystem services they provide. The food system can be a key of reconnection between urban and rural areas and has a great impact on materials and energy flows in the metabolism of a city-region. The contribution will explore the spatial transformation of urban and rural landscapes in the city of Trento through a multidisciplinary lens on social dynamics and the governance of food policies

Agricoltura di montagna in divenire: Approcci alle sfide agroalimentari in Trentino

Il presente lavoro si colloca nell’alveo di ricerche multi-scalari e trans-disciplinari in corso che indagano i potenziali approcci per la rigenerazione delle aree rurali nelle Alpi italiane, che soffrono da anni di fenomeni di abbandono e sottoutilizzo (Balducci, 2019; Gretter et al., 2018a). Il documento si concentra principalmente sul territorio della Provincia Autonoma di Trento (o per brevità, Trentino) per indagare come gli agricoltori affrontano le sfide attuali in modi diversi, cercando di realizzare sistemi sostenibili e vitali dal punto di vista ecologico e socio-economico (Bender & Haller, 2017). Il contesto culturale del Trentino riflette una lunga tradizione di specifiche norme di legge, che hanno concesso un certo grado di capacità di autogoverno in vari settori come la pianificazione territoriale e le politiche di utilizzo del territorio, la cultura e il sistema scolastico o i servizi sociali (Gretter et al., 2018b). L’obiettivo dell’articolo, più che presentare risultati specifici basati su una profonda analisi quantitativa-qualitativa, è quello di inquadrare le peculiarità di uno specifico territorio alpino, aprendo una serie di spunti di riflessione e discussione. Alcune sono già state attivate a livello locale, ma la maggior parte deve essere affrontata con un approccio più ampio e sistemico, che coinvolga una serie maggiore di parti interessate, passando dalle autorità pubbliche ai cittadini. In questo articolo, evidenziamo le esperienze in corso che la filiera agroalimentare trentina affronta oggi e come queste incidono sulla conservazione del territorio e dei suoi paesaggi culturali

Trento Social Commons. Coinvolgimento comunitario come modalità per una nuova relazione fisica e culturale tra spazi urbani, periferici e rurali

L'espansione delle aree urbanizzate ha pesantemente modificato le caratteristiche dei paesaggi culturali in molti paesi europei. Anche i territori montani sono stati interessati da tali processi. A causa delle loro peculiari caratteristiche sociali e topografiche lì gli effetti sono stati maggiori rispetto ad altri territori. Inoltre, il processo di espansione dell'urbanizzazione nelle Alpi è fortemente correlato con dinamiche temporanee che dipendono dai flussi turistici, dalla creazione di nuovi spazi di mobilità, dallo sviluppo economico e dalle dinamiche residenziali.In un contesto di estrema scarsità di spazi come nelle Alpi, la ricerca da parte degli abitanti della prossimità della natura a case e aree residenziali, mette sotto pressione gli strumenti di governance territoriale e fa scaturire situazioni conflittuali.Partendo da altre esperienze nei rapporti tra spazi urbani e periferici, questo articolo propone i tipici modelli di governance comunitaria rurale come soluzione in grado di rafforzare gli interessi collettivi rispetto a quelli individuali. Questi modelli possono essere replicati su scala urbana da parte delle autorità pubbliche. L’applicazione nella città di Trento ha dimostrato come i cittadini - anche laddove non sono comunemente applicati specifici modelli di governance collettiva - sono in grado, all’interno di specifiche azioni, di generare soluzioni sistemiche e auto-sviluppare modelli associativi e cooperativi per rigenerare gli spazi “aperti” intorno alla città. Tali esempi possono essere considerati dei “prototipi” da estendere ad altri territori urbani (alpini) seguendo un approccio che la città di Trento sta attuando attraverso diversi strumenti di politica partecipativa o attraverso progetti europei

Decision Making in City Planning: Processes of Visioning and Stakeholders Engagement and their Relation to Sustainable Land-Use in the SATURN Project

The EIT Climate-KIC SATURN project deals with rural-urban territories, their landscapes and environmental challenges. The land of our cities and regions is fragmented and prone to several challenges in terms of ecology, governance and social coherence. As a result of unregulated overlapping of different land uses and complex governance patterns, landscape fragmentation creates severe challenges in the ways the land is perceived, identified and therefore managed. The SATURN consortium is working on different models to help address the governance and decision-making process and support on a policy level by applying holistic ideas of visioning and stakeholder engagement at a city scale. The diversity of the three hubs (Birmingham in central England, Gothenburg in western Sweden, and Trentino in northern Italy) is reflected by their approaches to stakeholders’ engagement and visioning processes as well as especially adopted activities in each location. Within the SATURN project, we are investigating how these approaches could change perceptions and impact on landscape strategic actions. Through a series of especially designed workshops on landscape visioning and stakeholder engagement, the project aims to create a toolbox supporting urban, peri-urban and regional planning. This paper reports on the visioning and stakeholder mapping and analysis tools, and shares examples where these processes were tested during the broader SATURN scheme. Results demonstrate how the visioning exercise has changed public perceptions about an area and how this has affected the decision-making process of each city towards a more effective planning of sustainable landscapes. The stakeholder engagement activity demonstrates the importance of “mapping and analysis” of the various actors involved in a city and the ways a landscape project can effectively engage with them and seek further collaboration. Questions on how the results differ in cases where the stakeholder engagement process focused on a broad policy level or targeted specific actions for a certain region are being explored. Both the visioning and stakeholder engagement tools are subject to a holistic approach and a collaborative and open process between the stakeholders and the trainers, allowing the participants to build a vision for their regions and be one-step closer to systemic change

Pentraxin-3 in late-preterm newborns with hypoxic respiratory failure.

The aim of this study was: echocardiographical assessment of cardiac alterations in late-preterm newborns with hypoxic respiratory failure (HRF), and, study serum pentraxin-3 (PTX-3) in relation to the severity of respiratory impairment and to some echocardiographic parameters (i.e. ejection fraction (EF), stroke volume (SV) and cardiac output (CO). We enrolled in this study 40 newborn infants whose 22 (group I) with moderate HRF and 18 (group II) with severe HRF. In group I the mean values of EF, SV and CO were significantly higher than in the group II. Our results showed a significant increase of PTX-3 in group II patients at 24h of life when compared to group I. Taking patients all together (n=40), we found a significant (R=-73) reverse correlation between EF and serum values of PTX-3. PTX-3 in our patients with HRF is affected by the severity of the hypoxic insult and correlate with the cardio-vascular impairment

Green cities for a better future? – A case study from an alpine region: the Town of Trento

In a world where, by 2050, 70% of the population will be living in cities, a “New Urban Agenda” is considered crucial in order to form more sustainable, inclusive and resilient cities. This means cities which are liveable both from the natural and human-environment points of view and where citizens are involved in the realization and management of an attractive urban environment of high quality. Given the process of urbanization occurring in many towns of the Alpine Region, managers and planners need to know the new order of priorities in needs and values expressed by citizens with regard to urban forests and those in nearby areas. This paper illustrates a case study of the town of Trento, in the north-eastern Italian Alps, a typical medium-sized alpine town which, despite recent urbanization, is still in close connection to woodlands. The research has been carried out by means of a questionnaire aimed at investigating the relationship between citizens and their forests. In particular, the points of investigation were the main functions attributed to the forests and visitors’ preferences of forest features. The results show that urbanization and socio-economic changes, with the introduction of an urban lifestyle, are producing a radical transformation in people’s behaviour and attitudes with regard to forests. A survey of this type may be a useful tool in the hands of planners and managers in order to help shape a sustainable urban development

Urban Farming Models, Ecosystems and Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Environments: The Case of SATURN Pan European Programme

The “System and sustainable Approach to virTuous interaction of Urban and Rural LaNdscapes” (SATURN) project is exploring how resilience at a city scale might be achieved and how the issues of landscape fragmentation, governance and land management can be addressed resulting in a sustainable future. The EIT Climate-KIC SATURN project is based on a collaboration between three cities of very different scales and contexts, those of Gothenburg in western Sweden, Trento in northern Italy, and Birmingham in the United Kingdom. This paper focuses on the ways in which urban farming can become an important tool to mitigate or adapt to climate change in urban environments by exploring how the three major cities of SATURN deal with these concepts. Using the experience gained throughout the SATURN project as well as the strong communication developed within the consortium, the paper introduces the reasons why urban farming is not just an agricultural activity, but it relates to climate awareness, health and an element of community. With the examples of different urban farming models, this research presents the fully entrepreneurial model of Gothenburg, where a business model fosters sustainable and successful small-scale farming through municipal management of small allotments with associated basic infrastructure leased out to entrepreneurs. Public underutilized land is matched with farmers in order for them to scale up their businesses and provide sustainable food, by limiting the shipping distance of the produce. In the Trento case, bottom-up and more institutional processes have been combined to foster short local supply chains through the Nutrire Trento networking process which could benefit from the introduction of a land lease scheme named “banca della terra” (to support agricultural land recovery). The case of Birmingham presents a different model where farming in an urban environment is mostly seen as a support to communities, mental health and awareness, rather than an entrepreneurial activity. The innovation in this paper comes in the form of different European models related to urban agriculture and best practices, demonstrating how abandoned and underutilised public and private land can be regenerated and become an active part of the urban realm. Insights on the ways in which the three different models operate, as well as results on how farming in an urban environment can enhance resilient cities are discussed in this paper

Development of 3D-DDTC pixel detectors for the ATLAS upgrade

We report on the development of n-on-p, 3D Double-Side Double Type Column (3D-DDTC) pixel detectors fabricated at FBK-irst (Trento, Italy) and oriented to the ATLAS upgrade. The considered fabrication technology is simpler than that required for full 3D detectors with active edge, but the detector efficiency and radiation hardness critically depend on the columnar electrode overlap and should be carefully evaluated. The first assemblies of these sensors (featuring 2, 3, or 4 columns per pixel) with the ATLAS FEI3 read-out chip have been tested in laboratory. Selected results from the electrical and functional characterization with radioactive sources are here discussed.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, presented at 7th International "Hiroshima" Symposium on Development and Applications of Semiconductor Tracking Devices International Conference Center Hiroshima, Japan, Aug. 29-Sep.1, 200